Bazarov's old parents were all the more overjoyed by their son's
arrival, as it was quite unexpected. Arina Vlasyevna was greatly
excited, and kept running backwards and forwards in the house, so that
Vassily Ivanovitch compared her to a 'hen partridge'; the short tail of
her abbreviated jacket did, in fact, give her something of a birdlike
appearance. He himself merely growled and gnawed the amber mouthpiece
of his pipe, or, clutching his neck with his fingers, turned his head
round, as though he were trying whether it were properly screwed on,
then all at once he opened his wide mouth and went off into a perfectly
noiseless chuckle.
'I've come to you for six whole weeks, governor,' Bazarov said to him.
'I want to work, so please don't hinder me now.'
'You shall forget my face completely, if you call that hindering you!'
answered Vassily Ivanovitch.
He kept his promise. After installing his son as before in his study,
he almost hid himself away from him, and he kept his wife from all
superfluous demonstrations of tenderness. 'On Enyusha's first visit, my
dear soul,' he said to her, 'we bothered him a little; we must be wiser
this time.' Arina Vlasyevna agreed with her husband, but that was small
compensation since she saw her son only at meals, and was now
absolutely afraid to address him. 'Enyushenka,' she would say
sometimes--and before he had time to look round, she was nervously
fingering the tassels of her reticule and faltering, 'Never mind, never
mind, I only----' and afterwards she would go to Vassily Ivanovitch
and, her cheek in her hand, would consult him: 'If you could only find
out, darling, which Enyusha would like for dinner to-day--cabbage-broth
or beetroot-soup?'--'But why didn't you ask him yourself?'--'Oh, he
will get sick of me!' Bazarov, however, soon ceased to shut himself up;
the fever of work fell away, and was replaced by dreary boredom or
vague restlessness. A strange weariness began to show itself in all his
movements; even his walk, firm, bold and strenuous, was changed. He
gave up walking in solitude, and began to seek society; he drank tea in
the drawing-room, strolled about the kitchen-garden with Vassily
Ivanovitch, and smoked with him in silence; once even asked after
Father Alexey. Vassily Ivanovitch at first rejoiced at this change, but
his joy was not long-lived. 'Enyusha's breaking my heart,' he
complained in secret to his wife; 'it's not that he's discontented or
angry--that would be nothing; he's sad, he's sorrowful--that's what's
so terrible. He's always silent. If he'd only abuse us; he's growing
thin, he's lost his colour.'--'Mercy on us, mercy on us!' whispered the
old woman; 'I would put an amulet on his neck, but, of course, he won't
allow it.' Vassily Ivanovitch several times attempted in the most
circumspect manner to question Bazarov about his work, about his
health, and about Arkady.... But Bazarov's replies were reluctant and
casual; and, once noticing that his father was trying gradually to lead
up to something in conversation, he said to him in a tone of vexation:
'Why do you always seem to be walking round me on tiptoe? That way's
worse than the old one.'--'There, there, I meant nothing!' poor Vassily
Ivanovitch answered hurriedly. So his diplomatic hints remained
fruitless. He hoped to awaken his son's sympathy one day by beginning
_à propos_ of the approaching emancipation of the peasantry, to talk
about progress; but the latter responded indifferently: 'Yesterday I
was walking under the fence, and I heard the peasant boys here, instead
of some old ballad, bawling a street song. That's what progress is.'
Sometimes Bazarov went into the village, and in his usual bantering
tone entered into conversation with some peasant: 'Come,' he would say
to him, 'expound your views on life to me, brother; you see, they say
all the strength and future of Russia lies in your hands, a new epoch
in history will be started by you--you give us our real language and
our laws.'
The peasant either made no reply, or articulated a few words of this
sort, 'Well, we'll try ... because, you see, to be sure....'
'You explain to me what your _mir_ is,' Bazarov interrupted; 'and is it
the same _mir_ that is said to rest on three fishes?'
'That, little father, is the earth that rests on three fishes,' the
peasant would declare soothingly, in a kind of patriarchal,
simple-hearted sing-song; 'and over against ours, that's to say, the
_mir_, we know there's the master's will; wherefore you are our
fathers. And the stricter the master's rule, the better for the
peasant.'
After listening to such a reply one day, Bazarov shrugged his shoulders
contemptuously and turned away, while the peasant sauntered slowly
homewards.
'What was he talking about?' inquired another peasant of middle age and
surly aspect, who at a distance from the door of his hut had been
following his conversation with Bazarov.--'Arrears? eh?'
'Arrears, no indeed, mate!' answered the first peasant, and now there
was no trace of patriarchal singsong in his voice; on the contrary,
there was a certain scornful gruffness to be heard in it: 'Oh, he
clacked away about something or other; wanted to stretch his tongue a
bit. Of course, he's a gentleman; what does he understand?'
'What should he understand!' answered the other peasant, and jerking
back their caps and pushing down their belts, they proceeded to
deliberate upon their work and their wants. Alas! Bazarov, shrugging
his shoulders contemptuously, Bazarov, who knew how to talk to peasants
(as he had boasted in his dispute with Pavel Petrovitch), did not in
his self-confidence even suspect that in their eyes he was all the
while something of the nature of a buffooning clown.
He found employment for himself at last, however. One day Vassily
Ivanovitch bound up a peasant's wounded leg before him, but the old
man's hands trembled, and he could not manage the bandages; his son
helped him, and from time to time began to take a share in his
practice, though at the same time he was constantly sneering both at
the remedies he himself advised and at his father, who hastened to make
use of them. But Bazarov's jeers did not in the least perturb Vassily
Ivanovitch; they were positively a comfort to him. Holding his greasy
dressing-gown across his stomach with two fingers, and smoking his
pipe, he used to listen with enjoyment to Bazarov; and the more
malicious his sallies, the more good-humouredly did his delighted
father chuckle, showing every one of his black teeth. He used even to
repeat these sometimes flat or pointless retorts, and would, for
instance, for several days constantly without rhyme or reason,
reiterate, 'Not a matter of the first importance!' simply because his
son, on hearing he was going to matins, had made use of that
expression. 'Thank God! he has got over his melancholy!' he whispered
to his wife; 'how he gave it to me to-day, it was splendid!' Moreover,
the idea of having such an assistant excited him to ecstasy, filled him
with pride. 'Yes, yes,' he would say to some peasant woman in a man's
cloak, and a cap shaped like a horn, as he handed her a bottle of
Goulard's extract or a box of white ointment, 'you ought to be thanking
God, my good woman, every minute that my son is staying with me; you
will be treated now by the most scientific, most modern method. Do you
know what that means? The Emperor of the French, Napoleon, even, has no
better doctor.' And the peasant woman, who had come to complain that
she felt so sort of queer all over (the exact meaning of these words
she was not able, however, herself to explain), merely bowed low and
rummaged in her bosom, where four eggs lay tied up in the corner of a
towel.
Bazarov once even pulled out a tooth for a passing pedlar of cloth; and
though this tooth was an average specimen, Vassily Ivanovitch preserved
it as a curiosity, and incessantly repeated, as he showed it to Father
Alexey, 'Just look, what a fang! The force Yevgeny has! The pedlar
seemed to leap into the air. If it had been an oak, he'd have rooted it
up!'
'Most promising!' Father Alexey would comment at last, not knowing what
answer to make, and how to get rid of the ecstatic old man.
One day a peasant from a neighbouring village brought his brother to
Vassily Ivanovitch, ill with typhus. The unhappy man, lying flat on a
truss of straw, was dying; his body was covered with dark patches, he
had long ago lost consciousness. Vassily Ivanovitch expressed his
regret that no one had taken steps to procure medical aid sooner, and
declared there was no hope. And, in fact, the peasant did not get his
brother home again; he died in the cart.
Three days later Bazarov came into his father's room and asked him if
he had any caustic.
'Yes; what do you want it for?'
'I must have some ... to burn a cut.'
'For whom?'
'For myself.'
'What, yourself? Why is that? What sort of a cut? Where is it?'
'Look here, on my finger. I went to-day to the village, you know, where
they brought that peasant with typhus fever. They were just going to
open the body for some reason or other, and I've had no practice of
that sort for a long while.'
'Well?'
'Well, so I asked the district doctor about it; and so I dissected it.'
Vassily Ivanovitch all at once turned quite white, and, without
uttering a word, rushed to his study, from which he returned at once
with a bit of caustic in his hand. Bazarov was about to take it and go
away.
'For mercy's sake,' said Vassily Ivanovitch, 'let me do it myself.'
Bazarov smiled. 'What a devoted practitioner!'
'Don't laugh, please. Show me your finger. The cut is not a large one.
Do I hurt?'
'Press harder; don't be afraid.'
Vassily Ivanovitch stopped. 'What do you think, Yevgeny; wouldn't it be
better to burn it with hot iron?'
'That ought to have been done sooner; the caustic even is useless,
really, now. If I've taken the infection, it's too late now.'
'How ... too late ...' Vassily Ivanovitch could scarcely articulate the
words.
'I should think so! It's more than four hours ago.'
Vassily Ivanovitch burnt the cut a little more. 'But had the district
doctor no caustic?'
'No.'
'How was that, good Heavens? A doctor not have such an indispensable
thing as that!'
'You should have seen his lancets,' observed Bazarov as he walked away.
Up till late that evening, and all the following day, Vassily
Ivanovitch kept catching at every possible excuse to go into his son's
room; and though far from referring to the cut--he even tried to talk
about the most irrelevant subjects--he looked so persistently into his
face, and watched him in such trepidation, that Bazarov lost patience
and threatened to go away. Vassily Ivanovitch gave him a promise not to
bother him, the more readily as Arina Vlasyevna, from whom, of course,
he kept it all secret, was beginning to worry him as to why he did not
sleep, and what had come over him. For two whole days he held himself
in, though he did not at all like the look of his son, whom he kept
watching stealthily, ... but on the third day, at dinner, he could bear
it no longer. Bazarov sat with downcast looks, and had not touched a
single dish.
'Why don't you eat, Yevgeny?' he inquired, putting on an expression of
the most perfect carelessness. 'The food, I think, is very nicely
cooked.'
'I don't want anything, so I don't eat.'
'Have you no appetite? And your head?' he added timidly; 'does it
ache?'
'Yes. Of course, it aches.'
Arina Vlasyevna sat up and was all alert.
'Don't be angry, please, Yevgeny,' continued Vassily Ivanovitch; 'won't
you let me feel your pulse?'
Bazarov got up. 'I can tell you without feeling my pulse; I'm
feverish.'
'Has there been any shivering?'
'Yes, there has been shivering too. I'll go and lie down, and you can
send me some lime-flower tea. I must have caught cold.'
'To be sure, I heard you coughing last night,' observed Arina
Vlasyevna.
'I've caught cold,' repeated Bazarov, and he went away.
Arina Vlasyevna busied herself about the preparation of the decoction
of lime-flowers, while Vassily Ivanovitch went into the next room and
clutched at his hair in silent desperation.
Bazarov did not get up again that day, and passed the whole night in
heavy, half-unconscious torpor. At one o'clock in the morning, opening
his eyes with an effort, he saw by the light of a lamp his father's
pale face bending over him, and told him to go away. The old man begged
his pardon, but he quickly came back on tiptoe, and half-hidden by the
cupboard door, he gazed persistently at his son. Arina Vlasyevna did
not go to bed either, and leaving the study door just open a very
little, she kept coming up to it to listen 'how Enyusha was breathing,'
and to look at Vassily Ivanovitch. She could see nothing but his
motionless bent back, but even that afforded her some faint
consolation. In the morning Bazarov tried to get up; he was seized with
giddiness, his nose began to bleed; he lay down again. Vassily
Ivanovitch waited on him in silence; Arina Vlasyevna went in to him and
asked him how he was feeling. He answered, 'Better,' and turned to the
wall. Vassily Ivanovitch gesticulated at his wife with both hands; she
bit her lips so as not to cry, and went away. The whole house seemed
suddenly darkened; every one looked gloomy; there was a strange hush; a
shrill cock was carried away from the yard to the village, unable to
comprehend why he should be treated so. Bazarov still lay, turned to
the wall. Vassily Ivanovitch tried to address him with various
questions, but they fatigued Bazarov, and the old man sank into his
armchair, motionless, only cracking his finger-joints now and then. He
went for a few minutes into the garden, stood there like a statue, as
though overwhelmed with unutterable bewilderment (the expression of
amazement never left his face all through), and went back again to his
son, trying to avoid his wife's questions. She caught him by the arm at
last and passionately, almost menacingly, said, 'What is wrong with
him?' Then he came to himself, and forced himself to smile at her in
reply; but to his own horror, instead of a smile, he found himself
taken somehow by a fit of laughter. He had sent at daybreak for a
doctor. He thought it necessary to inform his son of this, for fear he
should be angry. Bazarov suddenly turned over on the sofa, bent a fixed
dull look on his father, and asked for drink.
Vassily Ivanovitch gave him some water, and as he did so felt his
forehead. It seemed on fire.
'Governor,' began Bazarov, in a slow, drowsy voice; 'I'm in a bad way;
I've got the infection, and in a few days you'll have to bury me.'
Vassily Ivanovitch staggered back, as though some one had aimed a blow
at his legs.
'Yevgeny!' he faltered; 'what do you mean!... God have mercy on you!
You've caught cold!'
'Hush!' Bazarov interposed deliberately. 'A doctor can't be allowed to
talk like that. There's every symptom of infection; you know yourself.'
'Where are the symptoms ... of infection Yevgeny?... Good Heavens!'
'What's this?' said Bazarov, and, pulling up his shirtsleeve, he showed
his father the ominous red patches coming out on his arm.
Vassily Ivanovitch was shaking and chill with terror.
'Supposing,' he said at last, 'even supposing ... if even there's
something like ... infection ...'
'Pyæmia,' put in his son.
'Well, well ... something of the epidemic ...'
'Pyæmia,' Bazarov repeated sharply and distinctly; 'have you forgotten
your text-books?'
'Well, well--as you like.... Anyway, we will cure you!'
'Come, that's humbug. But that's not the point. I didn't expect to die
so soon; it's a most unpleasant incident, to tell the truth. You and
mother ought to make the most of your strong religious belief; now's
the time to put it to the test.' He drank off a little water. 'I want
to ask you about one thing ... while my head is still under my control.
To-morrow or next day my brain, you know, will send in its resignation.
I'm not quite certain even now whether I'm expressing myself clearly.
While I've been lying here, I've kept fancying red dogs were running
round me, while you were making them point at me, as if I were a
woodcock. Just as if I were drunk. Do you understand me all right?'
'I assure you, Yevgeny, you are talking perfectly correctly.'
'All the better. You told me you'd sent for the doctor. You did that to
comfort yourself ... comfort me too; send a messenger ...'
'To Arkady Nikolaitch?' put in the old man.
'Who's Arkady Nikolaitch?' said Bazarov, as though in doubt.... 'Oh,
yes! that chicken! No, let him alone; he's turned jackdaw now. Don't be
surprised; that's not delirium yet. You send a messenger to Madame
Odintsov, Anna Sergyevna; she's a lady with an estate.... Do you know?'
(Vassily Ivanovitch nodded.) 'Yevgeny Bazarov, say, sends his
greetings, and sends word he is dying. Will you do that?'
'Yes, I will do it.... But is it a possible thing for you to die,
Yevgeny?... Think only! Where would divine justice be after that?'
'I know nothing about that; only you send the messenger.'
'I'll send this minute, and I'll write a letter myself.'
'No, why? Say I sent greetings; nothing more is necessary. And now I'll
go back to my dogs. Strange! I want to fix my thoughts on death, and
nothing comes of it. I see a kind of blur ... and nothing more.'
He turned painfully back to the wall again; while Vassily Ivanovitch
went out of the study, and struggling as far as his wife's bedroom,
simply dropped down on to his knees before the holy pictures.
'Pray, Arina, pray for us!' he moaned; 'our son is dying.'
The doctor, the same district doctor who had had no caustic, arrived,
and after looking at the patient, advised them to persevere with a
cooling treatment, and at that point said a few words of the chance of
recovery.
'Have you ever chanced to see people in my state _not_ set off for
Elysium?' asked Bazarov, and suddenly snatching the leg of a heavy
table that stood near his sofa, he swung it round, and pushed it away.
'There's strength, there's strength,' he murmured; 'everything's here
still, and I must die!... An old man at least has time to be weaned
from life, but I ... Well, go and try to disprove death. Death will
disprove you, and that's all! Who's crying there?' he added, after a
short pause--'Mother? Poor thing! Whom will she feed now with her
exquisite beetroot-soup? You, Vassily Ivanovitch, whimpering too, I do
believe! Why, if Christianity's no help to you, be a philosopher, a
Stoic, or what not! Why, didn't you boast you were a philosopher?'
'Me a philosopher!' wailed Vassily Ivanovitch, while the tears fairly
streamed down his cheeks.
Bazarov got worse every hour; the progress of the disease was rapid, as
is usually the way in cases of surgical poisoning. He still had not
lost consciousness, and understood what was said to him; he was still
struggling. 'I don't want to lose my wits,' he muttered, clenching his
fists; 'what rot it all is!' And at once he would say, 'Come, take ten
from eight, what remains?' Vassily Ivanovitch wandered about like one
possessed, proposed first one remedy, then another, and ended by doing
nothing but cover up his son's feet. 'Try cold pack ... emetic ...
mustard plasters on the stomach ... bleeding,' he would murmur with an
effort. The doctor, whom he had entreated to remain, agreed with him,
ordered the patient lemonade to drink, and for himself asked for a pipe
and something 'warming and strengthening'--that's to say, brandy. Arina
Vlasyevna sat on a low stool near the door, and only went out from time
to time to pray. A few days before, a looking-glass had slipped out of
her hands and been broken, and this she had always considered an omen
of evil; even Anfisushka could say nothing to her. Timofeitch had gone
off to Madame Odintsov's.
The night passed badly for Bazarov.... He was in the agonies of high
fever. Towards morning he was a little easier. He asked for Arina
Vlasyevna to comb his hair, kissed her hand, and swallowed two gulps of
tea. Vassily Ivanovitch revived a little.
'Thank God!' he kept declaring; 'the crisis is coming, the crisis is at
hand!'
'There, to think now!' murmured Bazarov; 'what a word can do! He's
found it; he's said "crisis," and is comforted. It's an astounding
thing how man believes in words. If he's told he's a fool, for
instance, though he's not thrashed, he'll be wretched; call him a
clever fellow, and he'll be delighted if you go off without paying
him.'
This little speech of Bazarov's, recalling his old retorts, moved
Vassily Ivanovitch greatly.
'Bravo! well said, very good!' he cried, making as though he were
clapping his hands.
Bazarov smiled mournfully.
'So what do you think,' he said; 'is the crisis over, or coming?'
'You are better, that's what I see, that's what rejoices me,' answered
Vassily Ivanovitch.
'Well, that's good; rejoicings never come amiss. And to her, do you
remember? did you send?'
'To be sure I did.'
The change for the better did not last long. The disease resumed its
onslaughts. Vassily Ivanovitch was sitting by Bazarov. It seemed as
though the old man were tormented by some special anguish. He was
several times on the point of speaking--and could not.
'Yevgeny!' he brought out at last; 'my son, my one, dear son!'
This unfamiliar mode of address produced an effect on Bazarov. He
turned his head a little, and, obviously trying to fight against the
load of oblivion weighing upon him, he articulated: 'What is it,
father?'
'Yevgeny,' Vassily Ivanovitch went on, and he fell on his knees before
Bazarov, though the latter had closed his eyes and could not see him.
'Yevgeny, you are better now; please God, you will get well, but make
use of this time, comfort your mother and me, perform the duty of a
Christian! What it means for me to say this to you, it's awful; but
still more awful ... for ever and ever, Yevgeny ... think a little,
what ...'
The old man's voice broke, and a strange look passed over his son's
face, though he still lay with closed eyes.
'I won't refuse, if that can be any comfort to you,' he brought out at
last; 'but it seems to me there's no need to be in a hurry. You say
yourself I am better.'
'Oh, yes, Yevgeny, better certainly; but who knows, it is all in God's
hands, and in doing the duty ...'
'No, I will wait a bit,' broke in Bazarov. 'I agree with you that the
crisis has come. And if we're mistaken, well! they give the sacrament
to men who're unconscious, you know.'
'Yevgeny, I beg.'
'I'll wait a little. And now I want to go to sleep. Don't disturb me.'
And he laid his head back on the pillow.
The old man rose from his knees, sat down in the armchair, and,
clutching his beard, began biting his own fingers ...
The sound of a light carriage on springs, that sound which is
peculiarly impressive in the wilds of the country, suddenly struck upon
his hearing. Nearer and nearer rolled the light wheels; now even the
neighing of the horses could be heard.... Vassily Ivanovitch jumped up
and ran to the little window. There drove into the courtyard of his
little house a carriage with seats for two, with four horses harnessed
abreast. Without stopping to consider what it could mean, with a rush
of a sort of senseless joy, he ran out on to the steps.... A groom in
livery was opening the carriage doors; a lady in a black veil and a
black mantle was getting out of it ...
'I am Madame Odintsov,' she said. 'Yevgeny Vassilvitch is still living?
You are his father? I have a doctor with me.'
'Benefactress!' cried Vassily Ivanovitch, and snatching her hand, he
pressed it convulsively to his lips, while the doctor brought by Anna
Sergyevna, a little man in spectacles, of German physiognomy, stepped
very deliberately out of the carriage. 'Still living, my Yevgeny is
living, and now he will be saved! Wife! wife!... An angel from heaven
has come to us....'
'What does it mean, good Lord!' faltered the old woman, running out of
the drawing-room; and, comprehending nothing, she fell on the spot in
the passage at Anna Sergyevna's feet, and began kissing her garments
like a mad woman.
'What are you doing!' protested Anna Sergyevna; but Arina Vlasyevna did
not heed her, while Vassily Ivanovitch could only repeat, 'An angel! an
angel!'
'_Wo ist der Kranke?_ and where is the patient?' said the doctor at
last, with some impatience.
Vassily Ivanovitch recovered himself. 'Here, here, follow me,
würdigster Herr Collega,' he added through old associations.
'Ah!' articulated the German, grinning sourly.
Vassily Ivanovitch led him into the study. 'The doctor from Anna
Sergyevna Odintsov,' he said, bending down quite to his son's ear, 'and
she herself is here.'
Bazarov suddenly opened his eyes. 'What did you say?'
'I say that Anna Sergyevna is here, and has brought this gentleman, a
doctor, to you.'
Bazarov moved his eyes about him. 'She is here.... I want to see her.'
'You shall see her, Yevgeny; but first we must have a little talk with
the doctor. I will tell him the whole history of your illness since
Sidor Sidoritch' (this was the name of the district doctor) 'has gone,
and we will have a little consultation.'
Bazarov glanced at the German. 'Well, talk away quickly, only not in
Latin; you see, I know the meaning of _jam moritur_.'
'_Der Herr scheint des Deutschen mächtig zu sein_,' began the new
follower of Æsculapius, turning to Vassily Ivanovitch.
'_Ich_ ... _gabe_ ... We had better speak Russian,' said the old man.
'Ah, ah! so that's how it is.... To be sure ...' And the consultation
began.
Half-an-hour later Anna Sergyevna, conducted by Vassily Ivanovitch,
came into the study. The doctor had had time to whisper to her that it
was hopeless even to think of the patient's recovery.
She looked at Bazarov ... and stood still in the doorway, so greatly
was she impressed by the inflamed, and at the same time deathly face,
with its dim eyes fastened upon her. She felt simply dismayed, with a
sort of cold and suffocating dismay; the thought that she would not
have felt like that if she had really loved him flashed instantaneously
through her brain.
'Thanks,' he said painfully, 'I did not expect this. It's a deed of
mercy. So we have seen each other again, as you promised.'
'Anna Sergyevna has been so kind,' began Vassily Ivanovitch ...
'Father, leave us alone. Anna Sergyevna, you will allow it, I fancy,
now?'
With a motion of his head, he indicated his prostrate helpless frame.
Vassily Ivanovitch went out.
'Well, thanks,' repeated Bazarov. 'This is royally done. Monarchs, they
say, visit the dying too.'
'Yevgeny Vassilyitch, I hope----'
'Ah, Anna Sergyevna, let us speak the truth. It's all over with me. I'm
under the wheel. So it turns out that it was useless to think of the
future. Death's an old joke, but it comes fresh to every one. So far
I'm not afraid ... but there, senselessness is coming, and then it's
all up!----' he waved his hand feebly. 'Well, what had I to say to
you ... I loved you! there was no sense in that even before, and less
than ever now. Love is a form, and my own form is already breaking
up. Better say how lovely you are! And now here you stand, so
beautiful ...'
Anna Sergyevna gave an involuntary shudder.
'Never mind, don't be uneasy.... Sit down there.... Don't come close to
me; you know, my illness is catching.'
Anna Sergyevna swiftly crossed the room, and sat down in the armchair
near the sofa on which Bazarov was lying.
'Noble-hearted!' he whispered. 'Oh, how near, and how young, and fresh,
and pure ... in this loathsome room!... Well, good-bye! live long,
that's the best of all, and make the most of it while there is time.
You see what a hideous spectacle; the worm half-crushed, but writhing
still. And, you see, I thought too: I'd break down so many things, I
wouldn't die, why should I! there were problems to solve, and I was a
giant! And now all the problem for the giant is how to die decently,
though that makes no difference to any one either.... Never mind; I'm
not going to turn tail.'
Bazarov was silent, and began feeling with his hand for the glass. Anna
Sergyevna gave him some drink, not taking off her glove, and drawing
her breath timorously.
'You will forget me,' he began again; 'the dead's no companion for the
living. My father will tell you what a man Russia is losing.... That's
nonsense, but don't contradict the old man. Whatever toy will comfort
the child ... you know. And be kind to mother. People like them aren't
to be found in your great world if you look by daylight with a
candle.... I was needed by Russia.... No, it's clear, I wasn't needed.
And who is needed? The shoemaker's needed, the tailor's needed, the
butcher ... gives us meat ... the butcher ... wait a little, I'm
getting mixed.... There's a forest here ...'
Bazarov put his hand to his brow.
Anna Sergyevna bent down to him. 'Yevgeny Vassilyitch, I am here ...'
He at once took his hand away, and raised himself.
'Good-bye,' he said with sudden force, and his eyes gleamed with their
last light. 'Good-bye.... Listen ... you know I didn't kiss you
then.... Breathe on the dying lamp, and let it go out ...'
Anna Sergyevna put her lips to his forehead.
'Enough!' he murmured, and dropped back on to the pillow. 'Now ...
darkness ...'
Anna Sergyevna went softly out. 'Well?' Vassily Ivanovitch asked her in
a whisper.
'He has fallen asleep,' she answered, hardly audibly. Bazarov was not
fated to awaken. Towards evening he sank into complete unconsciousness,
and the following day he died. Father Alexey performed the last rites
of religion over him. When they anointed him with the last unction,
when the holy oil touched his breast, one eye opened, and it seemed as
though at the sight of the priest in his vestments, the smoking
censers, the light before the image, something like a shudder of horror
passed over the death-stricken face. When at last he had breathed his
last, and there arose a universal lamentation in the house, Vassily
Ivanovitch was seized by a sudden frenzy. 'I said I should rebel,' he
shrieked hoarsely, with his face inflamed and distorted, shaking his
fist in the air, as though threatening some one; 'and I rebel, I
rebel!' But Arina Vlasyevna, all in tears, hung upon his neck, and both
fell on their faces together. 'Side by side,' Anfisushka related
afterwards in the servants' room, 'they dropped their poor heads like
lambs at noonday ...'
But the heat of noonday passes, and evening comes and night, and then,
too, the return to the kindly refuge, where sleep is sweet for the
weary and heavy laden....